@TheOtherMaven As for Victim vs Empowerment Feminism, I'm not on either side of that dichotomy, because I remember the 70s and the 80s. Back then, recognizing and talking about the ways women were being victimized by men--actual concrete events that were actually happening at the time--was fairly new. We were coming out of a time when that sort of treatment was just the norm--or even if it was perceived as cruel treatment, there was a general acceptance that there was little or nothing you could do about it. So we brought those events into the light, with each other, and sometimes in the public sphere.

But you weren't supposed to stay a victim! You were supposed to recognize the ways in which you were a victim and disentangle yourself from it, possibly with help if you needed it, and learn to create an independent power base for yourself. That's what it was all about!

The idea that you stay a victim so you can milk moral superiority out of it and then use that as moral or social or political capital was never the idea, never! Neither was the atrocious idea that you should lie about victimization that wasn't happening--that is a horrific thing to do which injures not only men who are unjustly accused, but other women! the women who have actually had something terrible done to them. It's hard enough to be believed--look at how long Cosby was able to get away with his shit. If you've got people crying wolf for their own personal advantage it makes things far worse for the women who are actually being hurt. It's one of the worst things you can do, as a woman, to lie about something like that.

The idea was to build alternative structures in some cases--both socially and psychologically (for oneself)--and in the most egregious cases, as with rape, to attempt to change society. And above all, to stand in solidarity with the efforts to do both.

I still agree with all of that. But feminism as it is now is unrecognizable. It has been commodified, as has victimization. And ironically, now that victimization is almost like a badge of honor, it becomes difficult to talk honestly about real victimization that's happening, as with the horrendous use of the internet in "slut-shaming" which often uses the most paltry of images to wreck girls' reputations, after which they are often swarmed by trolls both online and in the halls at school. 13 Reasons Why does a good job of portraying this--realistically, without commodifying the victimization.

In my opinion, feminism basically doesn't exist anymore. When Gloria Steinem can use what is essentially an anti-suffrage argument to condescendingly explain away young women's choice to support Bernie Sanders over Hillary, I think we're done.

As the man once said, "Say goodnight, Gracie."

#3.1.1.1
"Feminism" started to become a swear word when Victim Feminism was promoted over Empowerment Feminism - that is, when it became more important, more "worthy" of repetition in the Mass Media Echo Chamber, to note all the ways women were oppressed and victimized than to report on ways and means women could achieve/were achieving autonomy and even parity.

Certain high-profile cases fed into and fueled the promotion of Victim Feminism, until it has become the ugly distorted thing we see now, where every male is guilty from conception of everything that any woman wants to accuse him of (a bizarre, one-sex-only version of Original Sin).

Typically, the Shillary campaign tried to play it both ways, trading on the outmoded concept of Empowerment Feminism ("it's Her Turn") while trumpeting Victim Feminism at every opportunity and as excuse for Her every failing ("Sexists! Misogynists! BernieBros!").